Entering the Middle Way, 21 March 1991, part 1

Begin by adjusting our motivation, cultivating the motivation of the awakening heart. I must, for the sake of myself and all sentient beings, in order to free them from their suffering and to place in complete happiness, eliminate all my various faults, and to bring to consummation all my excellent qualities. That is to say, I must attain Buddhahood. Having attained Buddhahood, I will then go on to establish all sentient beings in a in a pure happiness divorced of all suffering. In order to achieve that end, I’m going to listen to and reflect upon the essence of the great vehicle Dharma, that is entering into the middle way.

Therefore, for the next three minutes, develop the healthy attitude of the awakened heart. That is the altruistic attitude to benefit all sentient beings as a motivation for listening to this present teaching. So today we’re going to begin the second of the 10 chapters from Entering Into the Middle Way. Beginning with the first two lines of the second chapter which read, Because his ethics are sublime and have pure qualities, he forsakes the stains of faulty ethics even while he dreams. In order to attain the final state of Buddhahood, is the consummation of all of one’s excellent qualities, and elimination of all of one’s various faults, it is necessary that we practice both the method and wisdom.

And the method consists of accumulation of merit. The wisdom, the accumulation of the exalted wisdom. And by method, essentially, we mean as it is set forth in the ornament of a clear realization where it says, Mind generation, the aspiration to achieve highest enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings. And that is to say that the mind which seeks enlightenment for all sentient beings is the essential method. And by method, and by wisdom, we mean the wisdom which realizes emptiness.

And this is technically referred to as a ultimate bodhicitta. And ultimate bodhicitta, the word ultimate is a translation of the Tibetan term, It has two syllables. Means the final reality. Means the final reality. Means the the direct, unerring realization.

The term mind generation has the connotation of being vast, extensive. So, it is a mind which is extended to all phenomena, realizing directly and unerringly their final reality, was the etymology of the term ultimate bodhicitta. So these two taken together, that is to say method and wisdom are the two main, two main means by which the the Buddhahood is attained. It is necessary to couple both method and wisdom by as a means to attain Buddhahood. Wisdom divorced of of method, by divorced of method, Buddhahood cannot be attained.

Method divorced of wisdom, by means of that Buddhahood cannot be attained. There must be a coupling, the association between method and wisdom to attain Buddhahood. So, the necessity for the combination of method and wisdom of the bodhisattva practice presented by way of analogy of that of a bird. In order to fly across the great ocean a bird must have both wings. If it only has one wing there’s no way it can fly.

Likewise with the bodhisattva in order fly to the grounds of Buddhahood, she must have both the two wings of method and wisdom. So, are, within the entering into the middle way, are presented the 10 bodhisattva grounds. We’ve discussed the first of these bodhisattva grounds, the ground of the very joyful in which the practice of the perfection of generosity is attained. So now we begin the the explanation of the second ground, the second of the bodhisattva grounds. So when we’re going to begin the discussion of the second bodhisattva ground, as we’ve mentioned, the word ultimate refers to the wisdom realizing emptiness.

And therefore, though throughout these grounds there is always present the wisdom realizing emptiness, which represents the accumulation of wisdom, still it’s necessary that it be coupled with the accumulation of merit. And here, at the second bodhisattva ground, this is done through practicing the perfection of ethics. So as it states here, the the practitioner on the second ultimate ground, because his ethics are sublime and have pure qualities, he forsakes the stains of faulty ethics even while he dreams. The sec first two lines of the text. So, by the text says pure, what we mean by ethics which are sublime and have pure quality.

It refers to the fact that the bodhisattva, while awake, does not contravene ethical conduct. But not only that, that even when asleep with her dreams does not contravene ethical conduct. By means of this sublime ethic, the bodhisattva achieves pure qualities and pure ethics. Continues, Because his movements of body, speech, and mind are pure, he accumulates all 10 paths of excellent deeds. So, in the practice of pure ethics, there is the involves the activities of body, speech, and mind.

All our various healthy and unhealthy activities are expressed through our body, speech, and mind. These are referred to as doors. There are three doors by which, just as the doors of a building, people come in, people go out. And likewise, with respect to our various activities, that both negativities can enter into ourselves by means of these three doors, negative and positive factors can exit and out through our three doors. So that there are there are the various activities of body, speech, and mind.

And these are these are entered into and one is influenced by the act by others activities by means entering into and exiting out of one’s three doors. Here they have the word movement. Remember, Geshe-la says it’s more like walking. One walks out and walks in the three doors just like walking back and forth. One enters into and exits out.

At this level, the second ground, that all of the various negativities of these three types of activities have been purified, that there is no unskillful actions at this state, that no unskillful activities can enter in nor activities exit out. That bodhisattva is only involved in skillful actions. All activities whatsoever are only skill ful. They’re only pure, excellent, and healthy actions. And this is the various activities which are subsumed under the 10 paths of, here they have the translation as the 10 paths of excellent deeds, or just simply most, the 10 paths of activities.

And the 10 paths of activities of body, speech, mind are completely pure at this point. Due to the reason of that So there there occurs the purification of all negativities expressed through the activities of body, speech, and mind. And this is the reason why it goes on to the fourth line where he says, it is said that he accumulates all 10 paths of excellent deeds. And this is to say that here the excellent synonyms are supreme or skillful, that all the various and deeds is actually karma or actions. That all of the, that he creates all of the karma which is now being created.

And the 10 paths refers to the 10 activities that the actions of three of speech, the four of three of body, four of speech, and three of mind. That all of these classes of actions are only skillful, that he only creates healthy karma, having purified all negative karma all negative actions. Because all of the bodhisattva’s actions are only pure, having entered into the, his path of actions accumulates only excellent karma. And, therefore, it is said that at this point he has reached a level of pure ethics. And, the next verse, the second two lines, the third, the third and fourth line, like an autumn moon he is always pure, beautified by them, serene and radiant.

At this point, you know, the bodhisattva is usually a simile comparing the bodhisattva to an autumn moon. This is not the case here in Australia, but in India and Tibet. In the summer, when the monsoons come, all of the dust and pollution in the air is washed out of the sky and settled. The air is extremely clear after the monsoon season when autumn comes. And it is at the height of the autumn moon.

The autumn moon is at the highest zenith of the moon in the sky. And, it’s at its clearest, and it’s most radiant, and most beautiful. And, also, it has a cooling effect on the heat of one’s body. So, the bodhisattva is being compared to this Autumn Moon that beautified by the purity of his ethics, having ceased all the various faulty types of ethics, that his ethics that he radiates and is beautified and shining the light of pure ethics. There’s no there’s no rain in Australia during the summer.

It rains in the winter. The spring. Spring. And this we were mentioning, we’re talking about the the three doors. And this is a very important aspect within the Lam Rim teachings, the teachings on the graduated path, in terms of what they mean by guarding the three doors of the sense powers, the sense faculties.

And by sense faculties we mean such faculties as the eye, ear, nose, tongue, and bodily sense powers, or sense faculties. That it’s necessary to guard them in some way since they are the means by which we can generate afflictive emotions. For example, by the sense faculty, by our eye sense faculty, if we were to look on some type of attractive object, there would be, since we are not advanced practitioners, that we have very powerful minds, there’s the danger of developing attachment. So immediately, when one begins to realize attachment is developing, to look away. That is the guard that sends faculty from acting as a doorway by means of which afflictive emotions can arise.

As we progress in our practice and we’re able to apply more and more powerful types of antidotes, then this is not necessarily the case. But at present it’s difficult for us to cease the afflictive emotions once they arise. So we have to begin to guard by looking away from those objects which could act as potential generators of afflictive emotions. And the same holds for the other sense faculty, such as the ear sense faculty, etcetera. So in the system of moral discipline, the Vinaya, it sets forth the fact that when one is coming and going, one should not look around at all things because there’s a danger of attachment arising, but should restrict the area that you’re looking at.

And, also, within the moral discipline, it points out that one should not wear fashionable clothing. One should not eat delicious food. What should just eat the types of food to only to nourish one’s body. One should not live in houses but live under trees. So the Buddha taught this in order to help us to prevent attachment arising.

So, we’re going to look at the first two lines in verse 21. The arising in bad migrations of resources from giving is due to a being’s losing his leg of ethics. We’ve explained the perfection of generosity. We’ve discussed that and that we there it was discussed, it was said that, that due to the practice of generosity, in the future one would obtain resources, or that is to say objects of enjoyment. And, in general, are six levels of, or six types of migrators.

There are two types of levels of migration. There are bad migrations and happy migrations. Happy migrations consist of the three levels of the human realm, the demi-gods, and the celestial beings. And there are three levels of the bad migrations. There’s the hell realms, the realm of the hungry ghosts, and the animal realms.

Now, the result of generosity as was mentioned is objects of enjoyment and that we are to make use, we are to seek to have these arise, these objects of enjoyment, these resources to arise in uninterrupted realms of higher, of happy migrations. That we should make effort to ensure that the future results enjoyments from having practiced generosity arise in happy migrations because they can, the results of generosity can arise in bad migrations. For example, that we have without difficulty the various types of resources such as food, clothing, and livelihood which come to us very easily. And, this arises through the practice of generosity. And as a result of this, in this human life, we have these various resources.

On the other hand, in Australia, we can see for ourselves that there are cats and dogs who live quite a luxurious life. They can just lay around and they have, once in a while someone will give them some really good food. They have a very comfortable place to live in. And though they are animals, they have resources. They have objects of enjoyment.

And this is a result of their previous practice of generosity in past time. But, though these beings have resources, they’re not able to enjoy them within the context of a happy migration. And the reason for this is that though they practiced generosity, they did not guard their ethics. They lost, as it were, their leg of ethics. This practice is likened to a leg, which supports one, and they lost their leg of ethics due to which they weren’t able to attain a happy migration though they had resources.

So the difference between these two classes of beings, selves having humans who possess resources, objects of enjoyment, and these animals who have objects of resources but have not seen a happy migration is that we on the one hand guarded our ethics and practiced generosity, they, though practicing generosity, did not guard their ethics. Did not observe ethics. So, this is the reason that ethics is so important, that though we may practice generosity and gain resources, we will not achieve a happy migration. In order to do that, we have to observe ethics. Well, what’s wrong with that?

You know, though though we because we haven’t observed ethics, and we these beings didn’t achieve a happy migration but achieved a bad migration, still they have having practiced generosity, they have objects of enjoyment. What’s wrong with that? And this is what is wrong with that? It’s really wrong. Why?

Because, as it says in the the latter two two lines of this verse 21, having spent completely both principal and interest, he will be without resources in the future. So there’s a great fault in this situation that, as was mentioned, resources are a result of generosity. But these beings who have, though they have resources, who have not attained a happy migration, but in this case, have attained a bad migration, a bad migration, they have limited capacity to understand the necessity of carrying on their practice of generosity. And therefore, though they have resources, their resources after some time are exhausted and they have not created the causes for future resources. So once their resources are spent and not having created the causes of future resources, they eventually experience great poverty in which they have no objects of enjoyment.

And this is an extremely pitiful